second smallest city in mass. rivaling north Adams. up until the last 25 yrs a bombed out fishing and factory town full of the most interesting lady's and gentleman you would ever hope too meet . lots of history ,written and folk , stories passed down from generation to generation etc. Now a fully functioning tourist trap and real estate bonanza.the town is literally owned by three people ,none of home are from there originally. Basically the most perfect form of gentrification this side of mystic Connecticut. Scratch the surface though and it gets real weird real quick . Drugs lots of em, freaky sex,murder,rape, violent assaults,and general skull dugary!

prsn #1: hey i heard you bought a house in newburyport!

prsn #2: yes but than my daughter got addicted to heroin, my wife was banging a child molesting police sgt. on the side, my son got busted selling coke and e and is doing 2 yrs in Middleton h.c., and i got involved in an s&m prostitution ring and now I have h.i.v. , you wana house ?

A small city in Massachusetts. Tourists love it there. The prices are pretty high, but hey, it's Mass, what do you expect? It's a generally nice place. Many people go there during the last week of July/First week of August for what is known as Yankee Homecoming, a week-wide event downtown. There are bands, and lots of food vendors and people selling things on the streets. It's a fun time all around. There is also a nice hotel in Newburyport called The Essex Street Inn, which is usually booked on summer holidays due to tourists.

An ancient, clustered, European style harbor town in northern Essex County Massachusetts at the mouth of the Merrimack River (on the south bank.)

Known for clipper ship construction two centuries ago, it has a very long history of prosperity and decline and figured prominently in the HPL story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" among other literary works.

In the last half century it has gone from slum to a wealthy place dominated by yuppies, and has some of the best preserved early 19th century urban architecture anywhere in North America.

But as someone already said, it has it's secrets... has had them for centuries.

More towns should be designed like Newburyport.

Newburyport has a long and rich history. Located on the south bank of the Merrimack River before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean, the area was originally inhabited by the Pawtucket Indians. It was settled in the 1630’s by European immigrants who founded the city of Newbury. The small port of Newbury was quickly settled and became a fishing and trading center with the rest of Newbury turning to agricultural pursuits.

By 1764, the port was so prosperous and densely settled that it broke off from Newbury to become Newburyport. Maritime trade fueled the city’s economy, sparking extraordinary building activity in the decades following.

In 1811, a catastrophic fire leveled the downtown. That event, coupled with restrictive federal trading policies and embargoes implemented in response to the War of 1812 and the national financial panic of 1816, resulted in the city’s economic downfall...